I've been reading about the arrests over the past few days: it seems that many of those arrested were given the option of paying fines to escape the cells. I wonder how many of those fines were recorded & forwarded to the 'legitimate' ( ) department. When those who work for a government see such corruption and malfeasance from on high, I wonder how long it takes for even a fair-minded person to become dishonest. Civil society? Of course it is...

And only the other week he was asking the Honkeys to return to help run the agriculture.
john
We have quite a few Southern Rohdisians out here in the tabacco trade, I alway ask them And hows your Robert today ?
Even after four years the replys are unrepeatable.

With unemployment at 70% those arrested probably couldnt pay the fine.
On a more serious note I would favor regime change in Zimbabwe. The South African's wouldnt like it much they seem to be pretty cozy with Mugabe.

In the Alice-in-Wonderland world that is Mugabe's Zimbabwe, 22,000 people making an honest living and minding their own business is an outrage that is not to be tolerated.

Zimbabwe may not have oil but, according to the Central Intelligence Agency, it does have chromium, nickel, vanadium, and platinum. Without those first three, you can't produce metal-working machine tools or jet engines.

Once Mr. Mugabe makes the country completely uninhabitable, murders or exiles the last white settler, and starves the last black non-Zanu-PF member to death, then the big shots will step in and re-colonize it.

I hate to say this, and I will speak for America, and not the UK. However, personally I feel we don't intercede in the affairs of Africa, because they are, well AFRICANS. Yes, the naughty, nasty, racist terms. I really do believe it. MILLIONS have died in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, etc and we have stood by and done nothing. I believe this is bullshit. Either we jump in, EVERYWHERE, or we don't jump in at all...

And that's just it right there. There is no reasonalbe way we (as a collective group of nations) should go into iraq/afganistan (both of which effectively resulted in regeime change) and then turn round and say "We aren't allowed to go into Zimbabwe"

The powers that be really couldn't give a fart about what happens in some small African basket case country of no immediate tactical importance. Some people have been arrested, so what?? Rwanda shed loads died. Not much happened in response. The troubles in Zim are really quite tame when judged in relation to many other African regimes.

Anyway if you really want to go help give us a shout as I come from Bulawayo, have a nodding acquaintance with Kariba and Vic Falls and can provide some good int on which bars to invade first.

If you put Iraq and Afghanistan in one hand, and Zimbabwe and Sudan in the other (which I'm sure everyone here already has done), it's clear that intervention in the latter nations would be of greater humanitarian importance - with Iraq, yes, people died in Saddam's regime, but in terms of atrocities (namely those in the 1980s), surely action NOW is a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?
On the other side, however, the African situation is a case of something forming that might get much worse. Close the door now, as it were.

If I recall correct , Cutaway and a fellow ex-Rhodie wanted to lead a company strength airdrop on Harare composed of African troops led by white officers/SNCO's .....Executive Outcomes anyone ?....... sort of a Wild Geese scenario only without Richard Harris and Hardy Krueger kufering it at the end I guess.

Their version had everyone gathered round a braai whomping back the ice cold Elephant beers by sundown the day of the drop.......

'Slow start' for Zimbabwe strike
A two-day opposition general strike in Zimbabwe in protest against a wave of arrests and demolitions has got off to a slow start, reports say.
Correspondents in the capital, Harare, say that although early morning traffic was lighter than usual, most businesses are open, as are schools and shops.

Security is reportedly tight, with a heavy police presence in poor areas.

Meanwhile, the opposition called for a boycott of Thursday's state opening of parliament by President Robert Mugabe.

The Movement for Democratic Change's National Chairman, Isaac Matongo, said the call had gone out to some members of the ruling party as well.

"We are asking even some Zanu-PF members to stay away because this is not being done to the MDC alone, it is being done to every Zimbabwean, who is up in arms with this government," he said.

Mr Mugabe is expected to announce constitutional changes, including the reintroduction of an upper house of parliament, which correspondents say are aimed at strengthening his grip on power.

Punishment threat

Correspondents say the usual rush hour traffic in Harare was far lighter than normal and there are reports that while many factories are open, up to half their workers have stayed at home.

The situation seems to be the same in the southern city of Bulawayo, where normally busy shopping areas are quiet.

The government has put on a show of force - with military helicopters clattering overhead - leaving people in no doubt that those who do strike could face punishment, he says.

Police have warned they will deal "ruthlessly" with any street protests.

The strike comes in response to a crackdown in which police say 30,000 people were detained, while thousands of homes and businesses have been demolished and as many as 200,000 made homeless.

The government says the demolitions are necessary to clean up Zimbabwe's urban areas and crack down on those involved in illegally trading foreign currency and scarce foodstuffs, such as sugar.

'New apartheid'

The sweep has been heavily criticised by church groups and opposition parties, which have combined to form the "Broad Alliance" and call the strike.

They say the crackdown is aimed at driving opposition supporters back to rural areas, where they have less influence.

The UN has demanded that Mr Mugabe stop the eviction operation, which it describes as a new form of "apartheid".

The UN Human Rights Commission estimates that up to 200,000 people may have been made homeless by the operation.

BBC southern Africa correspondent Barnaby Phillips says Zimbabwe is set for another test of strength between an embattled opposition and a repressive government.

...23:59 neighbours and parish priest report more disturbances from the Zimbabwe residence...scuffles reported...no officers available to respond.....callers reassured that PD monitoring the situation....NFA at this time........

So if this is the year that Tony Blair wants the world to save Africa, why not start with Zimbabwe?

Today is the second day of a general strike in that miserable and oppressed country. The strikers have a long long list of grievances, but the trigger for the protest was President Mugabe's three-week-long campaign to raze shanty houses. Two hundred thousand Zimbabweans, the poorest of the urban poor, are threatened with homelessness.

The houses belong to urban squatters. At other times, of course, Mugabe has encouraged and promoted squatting - when he was engaged in his campaign to confiscate the lands and force from the country Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers. (Nobody has covered this heart-rending story better than the UK Spectator. Their articles are now behind a subscriber wall, but if you are interested in this issue, you might consider signing up.) The farms stolen by the squatter campaign were not of course redistributed to the landless: They were lavished on Mugabe's inner circle and his own family, including his wife.

Now South African President Mbeki - Mugabe's closest ally - threatens to take that country, the most important and once most hopeful on the continent - in the same doomed direction.

Surely these stories give the final lie to the Sachs/Annan/Geldof theory that Africa suffers only from insufficient foreign aid? The story of southern Africa is one of unbroken decline toward poverty and tyranny underneath governments - let us be frank - to a very great extent installed by the US and Britain. The west is often blamed, not without justice, for propping up the Saudi monarchy/restoring the shah in 1953/assorted derelictions in Latin America, etc. Somehow Mugabe rule in Zimbabwe and African National Congress rule in South Africa never get mentioned in this polemical list, even though Mugabe already and Mbeki bids fair to do more harm to their subjects as any Latin American generalissimo ever did.

I am sure I read somewhere (quite possibly on ARRSE) that amongst the buildings bulldozed was a mosque. Strange that we haven't heard much if any outcry from the islamic world. Wonder what would happen if Finsbury Park Mosque was bullldozed tomorrow?!

I hope Geldof and his supporters feel good that however unwittingly all they are doing is to help many despotic and evil regimes.